


I Don't Want to Wake Up

by Theyna_Shipper



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Inspired by Doctor Who, Post-TRoS, Pregnancy, Psychological Horror, Soft Ben Solo, Takes place in Star Wars Universe, War, domestic life, s5e7: Amy's Choice, tros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23848027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyna_Shipper/pseuds/Theyna_Shipper
Summary: Rey lies down on Ben's cold, still chest on Exogol- and wakes up with him on the Falcon, pregnant with their first child, on a flight home... only to drift back to sleep and wake up again on Exogol.As she flickers between dream and reality, unable to tell which is which, she struggles to keep herself and Ben alive, she's forced to wonder: which one of these is the dream, and why did her mind choose this life?*Inspired by the Dr. Who episode "Amy's Choice", but will make sense even if you have not seen it*
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! The chapter count is a little uncertain at this point, but probably 3-5. 
> 
> As for the aliens, I just picked some stuff off Wookiepedia because their identity wasn't important to the plot.

Rey barely gets a moment to enjoy the smile spreading across Ben’s face before he falls backwards out of her arms and onto the floor. 

“No,” she whispers, panic flooding through her, her veins turning to ice. _Not now. Not after everything._ “Please,” she sobs. “Ben, please.”

She bends forward to rest her head on Ben’s chest, searching for breath, or the ghost of a heartbeat, something to reassure her that he is still alive, still here for her. But she is met only with silence, not even the faintest sound of life. His body will soon grow cold in her hands. “Ben,” she whispers against his shirt. “Please, Ben.”

She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, inhaling his scent, trying to memorize every piece of him before she loses him for good. And as she breathes in slowly, the room dissolves around her…

Rey wakes up in the co-pilot’s seat of the Falcon, Ben piloting it next to her. A small silver band glints on his finger, a matching one on hers. Are they… married?

She sits up slowly- something feels off about her balance. Looking down she sees her stomach protruding out in a gentle curve. _I’m pregnant,_ she realizes suddenly. 

She and Ben are married. And she’s pregnant with their first child. And they’re flying home from visiting Finn and Poe. Of course. This is her real life, five years after the First Order fell, after they defeated Palpatine together. 

“Everything alright, love?” Ben asks, looking over at Rey. “You dozed off there for a minute.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she mutters. “I just- had a weird dream.”

He squeezes her hand. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She leans back, the dream already fading in her memory. “We were back on Exogol... “ she recalls slowly. The planet had been the location of plenty of her nightmares for months after the battle, but she hadn’t been visited by such a distinct one in so long. “It was like it was. We won, you saved my life.” She smiles a little at the memory, of the first time she’d kissed Ben, after coming back to life in his arms. _How could I not be in love with him?_ “But something went wrong. You- You died,” she whispers, tears pooling in her eyes at the horror of the thought.”

“I’m right here, love,” he whispers back, holding her close. “Just a nightmare. I’m never leaving you again.”

She smiles. Could she wish for a more perfect soulmate “I love you.”

“Love you too. Now settle in, we’ve got a bit of a ride left.”

Rey leans back in her seat, and nods back off. 

Then she wakes back on Ben’s cold, unmoving chest, in the oppressive silence of the Sith cathedral, her tears soaking into his shirt. 

_No, wait, this is just a nightmare, he’s alive, we’re on the Falcon, I’m pregnant, please, wake me up again, please._ But the more time she spends here, the more she begins to wonder if this _is_ reality, and her happy life was the dream. Perhaps she passed out from exhaustion, and constructed a happy fantasy for her and Ben. But she doesn’t have any more time for dreams, she needs to get out of here and off this planet as fast as possible, and bring Ben. Maybe, _maybe_ someone can save him. There isn’t enough left in her to do so. 

She drags herself off the body when a voice calls her attention. 

“He’s not dead.”

Rey snaps her head in the direction of the voice. A figure clothed in grey, its facial figures indistinct stands over her and Ben. 

“Not yet, anyways.”

“What do I need to do to save him?” She has no idea who this is, what his allegiance, but there is no way in Hell she will let Ben die here. She will take help from any quarter. “Tell me!”

The figure snaps his fingers, and Ben shudders to life. Rey lets out a soft sob of relief. The sounds of his breath are enough to flood her with new hope. 

“Rey?” he says in a gravelly whisper. “I had- a dream-”

Rey frowns with concern. Dreams are taunting her today. “Yeah?”

“We were on the Falcon…” He is struggling to remember, just as it was with Rey. 

She looks towards the robed figure in shock and horror. “Who are you? What are you doing to us? Why these dreams?”

The temple starts to rumble dangerously, a weblike system of cracks spreading through the ceiling.

He grins wickedly. “I’ll tell you when you wake up.”

She wakes up on the Falcon with Ben again, this time not at all confident that this is reality. He is looking just as stunned and horrified as her, as they experience the same dangerous nightmares. 

Alarms begin to sound loudly in the Falcon. _”INCOMING HOSTILE FORCES, INCOMING HOSTILE FORCES”_

“Kriff,” Ben mutters. “We’ve verged too closely on these guys’ territories. It looks like a hostile group of Mon Calamari.”

“Well, warp us out,” Rey shouts. “Come on!”

“Something’s messing up the hyperdrive, I can’t get out! Can we get into their comm systems, tell them we want to go?”

“We can try, Rey mutters, reaching for the control panel. 

The robed figure is sitting there instead. “Ready to hear the rules?”

“Leave us alone, you bastard,” Ben growls, drawing his saber. “Or I’ll make you.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Please, do try.”

Ben swings his saber at the figure’s neck, only for it to pass right through.

“Please, just tell us what’s going on,” Rey begs. “Who are you, what do you want?”

He rearranges his robes. “Who I am is not important. I’m the master of your dreams. In one life, you are dying on Exogol unless you get out soon. In the other, your Falcon is about to get shot down. One of them is a dream, and one of them is reality. If you die in the dream you wake up in reality, safe. But if you die in reality…”

“We die,” Rey finishes. 

He nods. “Pick a life, children. And pick a death. And pray you’ve chosen well.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the positive comments! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I might consider doing more Reylo/Dr Who crossover in the future. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

Rey wakes up on the floor of the Sith Cathedral again, still trying to understand what the nightmare creature said. 

“This feels like real life,” she murmurs. 

“But so did the Falcon,” Ben finishes. “We can’t afford to trust either one.”

Another rumble shakes the cavern, dousing them in gravel. “And we have to survive in both, for now.”

Ben tries to sit up, but his face rapidly contorts in pain. In this life, Ben is badly hurt

“Oh your, leg!” Rey looks down at the torn and bloody wound, far beyond her medical capabilities. “We’ll just- patch it up for a bit,” she mutters, trying to keep her panic under control. Her exhausted body is running on sheer adrenaline, blurring her thoughts. “Hold still.”

She pulls some of the fabric away from the wound. It’s a deep gash in the thigh, but the bleeding is not dangerous yet. She unwraps the cloths on her arms and uses them to bandage his leg. “That’s all I can do for now,” she says shakily. “Can you walk?”

“I can try,” he says through clenched teeth. She helps him to his feet and holds his arm over her shoulder to support him. He is fighting bruised ribs, and Force only knows how many broken bones, but adrenaline is a true miracle worker. 

Rey can feel his pain, but only a tiny fraction of it. He should be dead, she realizes. How far had he fallen down that chasm? That fall should have been impossible to survive. 

_Maybe this IS the dream,_ she realizes. _If it’s impossible._

A second voice in her head interrupts her internal musings- and it’s not Ben’s the only other voice she would have welcomed. 

_Already feeling confident? I’ve barely given you any clues yet!_

_Get out,_ she shouts internally at the nightmare. 

_I know you have questions, little Jedi. And I’m the only person you can ask._

“I’m not alone,” she hisses out loud. 

_Aren’t you, though? Your dear Ben is barely clinging to life. He barely knows where you are. Can you ask him?_

Rey takes a deep breath. This is like the games they played on Jakku, a game of cards for a scavenging zone, for a piece of scrap, for liquor or for food. She has to play by the rules- but she doesn’t have to like it. 

“Why here? If this is the dream, why here? And if this is real, why there?”

 _That’s the fun in it, dear girl,_ the nightmare taunts. They’re both from your head! Well, one of them is real. The other is from your head. That’s what makes it so hard to tell.The nightmare is what you’re afraid of. As all nightmares are.

 _Then this has to be the nightmare,_ Rey retorts. _I’m afraid of losing Ben._

_But the scary part about a good nightmare is that it could be real. And as much as you are afraid of it, a tiny part of you wants it. Like your nightmares as a child, when you left Jakku and your family. You could have made it real. Whatever is in your nightmare- as much as you’re afraid, you want it._

He’s right. Rey’s nightmares are always a mixture of her desires and fears.

“Kriff off,” Rey shouts into the cave. 

_Your wish is my command._

“What?” Ben asks. 

“Nothing,” Rey mutters, “Just- a weird feeling.”

“Can’t say I’m too fond of this place myself.”

She smiles weakly. “Yeah.”

_That’s right, Rey. Stay strong for him. This is your nightmare, not his._

_Get out._

The rumbling in the cavers has stopped for the time being, and the room is slightly more stable. 

“Let’s take a quick rest, okay?”

He nods in agreement. His face, she realizes, is completely drained of blood. But she can’t focus on that, not until they are out of here. 

As they lean against the rocks, and take a few deep breaths, Rey slips away from the world, and knows what is going to happen before it does. 

She stirs back awake on the Falcon, chaos and explosions around her. “Comms,” she mutters, and begins to mess with the radio, while Ben flies them through the field. 

Meanwhile, Rey tries to process what the Nightmare (this is what she is now referring to him as) meant. If this were real, she wouldn’t be afraid of it would she?

 _”Of course this is real life,”_ he coos. _”Your husband by your side. Soon, your child. There’s no reason to be afraid of this life.”_

He’s trying to throw her, make her doubt herself. But this probably _is_ the real one. This isn’t a nightmare. This is the life she would long for, were the other one real. 

So why would she miss the war? Miss the danger, the blood, the grief? Ben bleeding before her eyes?

“Rey? Everything alright?”

“Sorry,” she mutters, returning to her work. “I can’t patch in, the encryption is too complicated. I’ll have to check the hyperdrive.”

“Rey, that’s-” he sighs as she stands on her chair and pushes aside the panelling- “dangerous.”

“Shut up and fly me out of here,” Rey growls, bracing herself for the inevitable turbulence. One particularly hard swerve tosses her sidewise, breaking her focus. 

And just like that, she is back on Exogol, the room once again crumbling. “We need to get out! Now!”

But Ben can barely walk, and Rey has very little strength of her own left to lend him. “Just a little longer, OK?” she coaxes. “Good. That’s right. Come on.” She pulls him to his feet, and begins walking out, debris falling behind them. 

_”You’re running out of time, darling.”_

“Breathe,” she whispers. “Just breathe.”

_”He’s dying. You have to choose, Rey. Which one is real life? Are you afraid of a family or do you miss the war?”_

“Please,” she begs quietly. “Just let us get out.”

_”I don’t think so.”_

Falcon again. Bullets are flying thick and fast, and Rey cannot find anything wrong with the hyperdrive, but it still won’t work. 

“I can’t get us out in time!” Ben shouts. “We need to jump!”

“I can’t fix the hyperdrive! I can’t see the problem.” Tears are coursing down her cheeks. The Falcon shudders and lurches. 

“We’ve been hit.” Ben curses. “We _need_ to jump away.”

“We can’t!” Rey sobs. “We can’t.”

The Nightmare appears on the consul, visible to both of them. “You’re running out of time, dears. You have to choose.”

Cracks are spiderwebbing across the temple floor, and they are still several minutes from the exit. If they were both at full strength, maybe they could make it, but they aren’t, and they can’t. Chunks of rock begin to tumble down around them. 

He is right. They are running out of time. In one world they are going to die. They just have to choose which one first. Which one is dream, which one is life? Which one is _wrong_?

“The physics are off here,” Rey remarks. “And the Force feels- wrong. But my mind felt foggy in the other one, like my memories were altered, or faked, or something.”

“They’re filled with red herrings,” Ben rasps, running out of breath. 

“Just keep walking,” Rey growls. 

“Rey…” he tries to shout in warning, but only a slurred whisper comes out, before a chunk of rock descends from the ceiling and strikes his head. 

“Ben!” Rey shrieks, her voice echoing through the cavern. “BEN!”

She kneels down next to him. No puls, no breath, no heartbeat, more wounds than a man could possibly survive. 

“He knows.”

The Nightmare is speaking and standing, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Rey is alone.

“He knows the answer. Either he’s woken up on the Falcon, or become one with the Force. And wherever he is, he’s begging you to make the right choice.”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I still don’t know.” Her heart feels cold and empty, like she’s really, truly lost Ben.

Then something fires in her brain, a decision if not a conclusion. “This is the dream,” she announces. “I need to die here.” She unclips one of the two sabers- Leia’s- and holds it in her hands. “I need to be with him.”

“Are you absolutely certain? Completely and utterly?”

Rey shook her head. “No.”

“And you’re willing to take that risk?”

“If this really is the real world- the world where Ben is dead,” she sobs. “I don’t want to live in that world.”

Rey’s last sensation is of the cold steel hilt against her throat, before her entire world explodes in blue light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe and healthy!


	3. Chapter 3

Rey floats around in pure blackness for a moment, completely detached from her own body. 

_Is this death?_ she wonders. _Will I get to see Ben?_

But the trancelike, incorporeal state only lasts a few seconds, before she is returned to consciousness, and is flooded with relief. 

Ben looks over at her. “I died,” he says quietly. “But you-”

“I solved it,” she lies. “I knew that one was a dream.”

He smiles with relief. “The hyperdrive got its act together while you were still out. We jumped just in time.”

“Thank goodness,” Rey whispers. Her mind is still in a fog, but she assumes it is just because of her hyper-realistic nightmare sequence. Surely that would unbalance anyone. 

“Yes, you _solved_ it,” the Nightmare drawls, sitting atop the controls again. “Congratulations. And I’ve followed through on the deal. You’re safe and happy in your real life again.” He looks Rey dead in the eye. “Losing your dear husband on Exogol was just a nightmare. You know what that means. Now I’d recommend you hurry home before anyone starts to worry.”

Rey resists the urge to slap the man, and instead lets him fade into the background. She leans back in her seat and lets Ben take over piloting. 

“You sure you still feel alright?”

“Yeah,” Rey smiles, “Absolutely.” 

She hates lying to him, but she cannot calm the storm of thoughts inside her head enough to express them. 

_I don’t miss the war, the danger. I don’t. That was horrible. All I want is Ben, right her, with me. We’re married. I never could have dreamed of that before. We have been for-_

She blanks suddenly. When _did_ they get married? What was their wedding like? It feels like it is all behind a locked door in her memory. 

“Ben? Does something feel wrong?”

He looks up sharply. “What?”

“Like you’re… losing memories or something. Or they were never there to begin with.”

He frowns “No…? Rey, are you sure you’re alright? Maybe you hit your head when we get hit or-”

“No! Something’s wrong, I can feel it.” She closes her eyes and tries to determine what still did not add up. 

“That Nightmare- thing. He never said who he was. Never explained what he was doing, why he was here. Have you ever heard of anything like that, who can suspend you between dream and reality?”

He shook his head. “I guess not. Mind control that powerful, though… it would have to be some powerful Force-sensitive or something. But we would’ve noticed if the hallucinations were Force based.”

Rey nods. What kind of telepathic creature or- something could do that. There were legends, from the Clone wars, but she thought-

“Have you ever heard of a nightmare demon?”

“Vaguely. Luke mentioned them once, but he said they had all been eradicated.”

She shakes her head. “Some of them survived. Palpatine kept them and trained them. This must be some sort of hyper-evolved nightmare demon, capable of creating these dreamscapes, _really_ getting in your head, and looking human.”

“So it’s still on the ship? We have to find it, don’t we? Kill it?”

Rey shakes her head furiously. “But it put the ship in danger, too. It can’t create that many dangers in the real world. It can only manipulate the dreamscape.”

Ben frowns. “Rey, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“We’re still in the dream! He was offering us a choice between dreams. Both of them were fake. This isn’t real either. We’re still asleep somewhere. Not here!”

“No, no, Rey, this is our real life, this isn’t a dream. The nightmare is over. Please, Rey, just calm down, we can figure this out.”

“When did we get married?”

“What?” 

Rey grabs his hand and looks him in the eye. “How long have we been married?”

“What does that have to do with-”

“Do you remember our _wedding_ , Ben?”

“Of course I remember, that was the happiest day of my life!”

“Tell me about it. Tell me _something_ about it. What month was it? What season was it? What was I wearing? _Anything_?”

She watches Ben’s face slowly morph into one of confusion as he realized he _couldn’t_ remember, then snap back into one of resolve. 

“It’s the demon. It’s still messing with us. _This_ is our life, Rey. This can’t be, fake can’t be a nightmare. What about the baby, Rey?”

_The baby._ She can’t seriously give up the baby, can she? Her family, her life with Ben? But what if it’s all fake, all a dream? All about to be taken from her?

_“Yes, Rey,” taunts the voice in her head, back again for another round. “Your child. A little girl- don’t worry, you already would know. A little girl with his eyes, Rey. That has to be your real life.”_

“Ben.” She looks deeply into his eyes. _A little girl, with his eyes._

“This is real, Rey,” he murmurs. “What are we going to name her?”

“Leia,” she whispers, the memory popping suddenly into her head. “For your mother.”

He smiles. “That’s right. Leia Rey Organa-Solo.”

Rey smiles weakly at the thought. _“That’s right. Named for two of the most important women in the galaxy. What a legacy this little girl will have!”_

“No!” She shouts. “He’s still in my head! _This is a dream._ Ben do you, trust me?”

“Of course I trust you.”

“Then you need to believe me. This is _my_ nightmare. Not yours. It’s mine to suffer and to solve. And I know if it’s real. And we need to wake up.”

“But- how?”

Rey steels her gaze, takes one last longing look at her swollen stomach, and what could maybe one day be, and then clenches the controls. 

“We need to die.”

“ _What?_ And if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong.”

Ben takes a deep breath and accepts the reality of the situation, the need to trust the woman he loves more than anyone else in the world. 

They move the Falcon close to a near-deserted planet, one that will certainly kill them on impact. But he doesn’t move the ship just yet.

At a dead halt, he looks longingly at Rey and the life they have. “I love you.”

Then he crashes the ship into the unforgiving surface below.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kind comments! Now for the thrilling conclusion... (The nightmare demons are in fact a real thing in some version of the Star Wars universe but I'm probably wrong about a lot of them)
> 
> That awkward moment when you wake up with your enemy/crush on the ruins of your grandfathers' death machine after a hyper-realistic dream in which you had a child together amiright

This time there is no transition period between their death in the dream and waking up in a new place. 

Rey is soaking wet, and rain still hammers down on her fiercely. She opens her eyes to the surroundings, taking some time to remember what ‘real life’ is after being buffeted by these horribly lifelike nightmares. 

Real life is Kef Bir, and rain, and waves, and she is lying on Ben’s chest on the ruins of the Death Star amid the crashing surf. 

Of course- the energy it took to heal him must have knocked both of them out. How the dream demon, in its hyper-evolved incorporeal form had entered the fray, she didn’t know, but it had clearly been killed for real when they killed it in the dream. 

A single look at Ben’s face tells her that they had, in fact, shared that dream. They watch each other in shock and awe at what they did- thought they did- in that other world. Where had those thoughts been pulled from? 

The strength of the nightmare has created a bubble in the Force around them, keeping anyone else from coming close. Rey keeps it there as she slowly pushes herself off Ben’s chest.

“We could change everything right now,” she implores. “We _did._ You saw.”

His face is still frozen in the expression of shock and awe, almost incredulity. “We had a _child,_ ” he whispers.”

“Yeah,” Rey says, “We did.” She grabs his hand and pulls him so he is sitting up. “You said you loved me.”

“I did,” he replies. “I do. Ever since-”

Rey sees it flash in his mind and subsequently in hers, although she barely needs to be told. She sees herself, rain-soaked and frightened, extending a hand to him in the flickering light of the fire. Later, him repeating the gesture to her amid the twinkling sparks in the throne room. 

She cups his cheek in her hands; the scar on it that she gave him all the way back on starkiller is fading from the strength of her healing, seeming to symbolize a new beginning for both of them. _Let the past die._ And this time, he was right. 

“I feel it too,” she tells him quietly. “Ben…” She puts her other hand on the side of his face and presses their foreheads together. “I don’t know what to say.”

He relaxes his spine and breathes out- she can feel his warm breath on her face. “In the first dream,” he asks quietly, “After I- I died. How did you know that it was- that you had to-”

“I didn’t.”

She had no idea. For all she knew, it could have been real. And she chose that, she chose to die next to him instead of living alone. Rey had not even _realized_ the depth of her feeling for him until that moment. 

“Was that- real? Or was that just another dream?”

“ _Ben,_ ” she whispers longingly. “You’re my other half. I love you- I don’t know for how long.” A smile creeps across her lips. “ _It’s real_.”

Then she thinks of something else that happened only in the dream, something that is not real- yet. 

She presses a slow, lingering, longing kiss to his lips. It is rich and warm and right, and far exceeds anything she could have imagined, even in a dream. 

She pulls away and looks into his stunned and sparkling eyes. Those dark, soulful eyes. _A little girl, with his eyes._

There is so much more left for them, so much more left in the world for them after this. A whole future they could barely dream of. She pulls herself to her feet and extends a hand to Ben, hopefully for the last time, that they might stay clasped together from now on. She gestures to his ship and begins to lead him forward. He looks back at her quizzically. 

“Well?” Rey smiles. “The only way I’m getting to Exogol is with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear your feedback!


End file.
